Book Review- The Carpet Makers by Andreas Eschbach
August 21st 2007 06:36
Andreas Eschbach
Die Haarteppichknüpfer (The Carpet Makers) (1995)
Reviewed: 2002-09-27
This is the story of the hair carpet makers. I cannot promise that you will love it. I cannot even promise that you will like it. I can promise you only one thing: You will never forget this story. —Andreas Eschbach
Any discussion of contemporary German SF authors is bound to bring up the name of Andreas Eschbach, shooting star of the German SF scene, who has garnered multiple awards and translations into several European languages. Die Haarteppichknüpfer is his debut novel.
The narrative starts out on a remote planet, whose inhabitants live in medieval conditions. A lost colony it seems. The local culture revolves around the knotting of carpets from human hair, carpets destined for the court of the emperor, works of art so incredibly intricate a weaver will spend all his life on a single carpet. Eventually the story widens to interstellar, even intergalactic scope. The immortal emperor, absolute ruler and god since time immemorial, has been overthrown, killed by rebels, but his presence lingers on in the outreaches of the vast empire. The carpets are the obsession of a whole galaxy and their purpose and ultimate destination becomes an ever deepening mystery. The more is unraveled the more terrifying are the facts that surface.
Eschbach's narration is somewhat unusual in that there is no protagonist. Each chapter tells its own little story, tenuously related to the others. In each chapter the author introduces new characters and many will find a gruesome fate soon after, giving the novel an overall grim mood. It is a story of power and ruthlessness on a superhuman scale, of wonder at the extent in space and time. The dimensions involved are far from plausible, but if you can suspend your disbelief the monstrosity will be even more suffocating.
Quite memorable indeed.(net sourced)
I was wandering around the local library trying to find a decent book to read, when someone looking in the same section suggested this book to me. 'The Carpet Makers?' I thought to myself, how can this be sci-fi?? Even with a foreward by Orson Scott Card I was less than convinced but anyway I still took it home to start reading.
As previously mentioned the story opens on a remote planet and as I started reading, I was struggling to work out how carpets made from human hair could be connected to sci-fi??
But slowly but surely as each little chapter in the drama is played out, the story starts to become clearer as each small chapter widens the picture until you are looking at things on a galactic scale.
By the end when the mystery of the hair carpets and where they go is revealed, I was left opened mouthed at the sheer monstrosity of it all. Sheer brilliance as an idea though by Andreas.
This is an interesting novel, well written and worth a read, there are a few minus points which mainly centre around characters that are introduced and then nothing. so you are left with the question what happened to them and why were they introduced??
But overall a damm good read.
kiwiauthor rating 8/10
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